University of Warsaw lecture, Umschlagplatz and POLIN Museum

Social and Political psychologist Michał Bilewicz, the Director of the University of Warsaw’s Center for Research on Prejudice, spoke to our group today in a lecture synthesizing much of his work with colleagues on antisemitic and other prejudicial attitudes in Poland. His lecture was highly accessible for students of different academic backgrounds (psychology, political science, art and education are the majors of our students) and those who don’t have substantive knowledge yet of social psychological processes. I left the psychology building thinking he is a clearly committed, excellent teacher in addition to being a very prolific researcher in these extraordinarily important areas.

We stopped briefly by the Umschlagplatz, the deportation station for the Warsaw Ghetto Jews, and then after a lunch of typical Polish fare and a brief respite at the hotel we ventured out to POLIN, a museum dedicated to presenting the 1000-year history of Jews in Poland. This is an incredible architectural space and a totally comprehensive museum and we spent over two hours there. There is so much to be said about this museum and I’m still processing it all. More later!